Nintendo Spokesman Talks Next-Gen and MS

Thanks to GamesIndustry.biz for an article outlining comments made by Nintendo VP of sales and marketing Reggie Fils-Aime. His comments confirm that Nintendo's next console will release around the same time as the PS3, and bashed MS for rushing to the next console generation. "Our focus is this: we will bring Revolution to the marketplace roughly at the same time as the competition," Fils-Aime told US website IGN. "We are driving our timetables based on what we believe Sony will do."

Comments

Revolution and DS

[mrgreen4242]

Fils-Aime also confirmed that the forthcoming Nintendo DS handheld could potentially be used to link up with the GameCube console, and will almost certainly boast link features with the Revolution platform.

That's what I was most interested to see in this article. This leads me to believe that the DS will have built in wireless networking capabilities, and given the low cost of ethernet hardware, I would bet that it will also have a port for wired broadband. I suspect that the NRevolution will likely function as a wireless AP for nearby DSes. My biggest question is wether or not the Revolution will be backward compatible with the GC. That's something that Nintendo has never done (with it's consoles) and I think may be important if MS decided to ditch backwards compatibility in the XBNext and Sony sticks with it for the PS3.

Re:Revolution and DS

[satoshi1]

It's been known that the Revolution will be backwards compatible. This will help Nintendo, especially with MS's move to ditch it, as you said. I really feel as if MS isn't going to have much of a presence in the next-gen of consoles. Nintendo will hopefully have a bigger presence, and Sony will still be up there...

My vision

[Apreche]

Nintendo is setting up some of the most original hardware I have ever seen. Me and my friends are making a hobby of thinking up things that were never before possible before the Nintendo DS. The possibilites are truly endless and amazing. I predict, and hope, that the Revolution will act as a hub for Nintendo DSes.

Here is my vision:

16 DSes can linke wirelessly. If the revolution can link to all those DSes then you can do this. Have a game with four teams, four players per team. The big screen attached to the revolution has the readout for the entire game, each player has two screens on their DS to do their personal bit.

Even better. If the revolution has a net connection. Then you can have two revolutions connect over the net or via lan cable. Two teams of 16 can fight each other. One team in one room in one country, the other team on the other side of the world. The teams can communicate with microphone that plugs into the ds. The idea of a game like this is the best thing ever. Imagine, online teamplay gaming without even a possibility of cheating!

Nintendo is making the hardware which makes this possible. But I am worried they will not make the software that takes full advantage of the possibilities. At least Warp Pipe looks like they are moving in that direction.

Re:Heh...

[abandonment]

exactly - nintendo is NOT going to go the direction of the 50-100 million dollar games, which are becoming expected budgets for ps3 and xbox2 titles - the next generation is exponentially increasing development budgets and time...

nintendo has done the math, they know that sony & microsoft can (and seem to be willing to) develop themselves to death and still not produce good games...it's only a matter of time before the return on investment simply does not add up.

you spend $50 million (HL2, Sims2, etc) to make a game, how many do you have to sell before it's considered a success for the company?

usually investors (stockholders, etc) want an 'increase' in their returns, not barely breaking even...

Re:This has always been Nintendo's Pattern of Atta

[ronfar]

Basically, Nintendo got nervous about what Sony was doing (The SNES CD-Rom extension). It seemed like Sony intended to use their deal with Nintendo to take over the video game industry and make Nintendo dependant on them. Of course, Sony did end up taking control of the video game industry, but Nintendo remained an independant company.